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Kade exits, one hand shoved in his jeans pocket, the other holding the strap of his backpack. His shoulders are hunched, his gaze down, a dark lock of hair flopping over his forehead like a privacy screen.
Elara walks a little faster, stepping around the student who exited before Kade. Almost feeling like she’s getting a run-up, she aims for him. Kade keeps walking, not looking up, not showing any sign he knows a determined missile is coming straight at him.
But a moment before they’re supposed to collide, he shifts slightly to the left, avoiding any collision. This time, Elara’s ready for it. She jolts as if the crash really happened, and the five textbooks she’s juggling go flying.
They’ll hit the ground and if Kade has any manners at all, he’ll be forced to stop and help her pick them up.
Except there are no thuds as spines hit the linoleum. No slaps as covers land on the floor.
With lightning-fast movements, Kade catches every one of them.
Elara straightens, working to keep her mouth from dropping open. She barely blinked and now he’s holding the texts, jostling them neatly on top of each other as if they’d been in his hands all along. He holds them out, eyebrows raised. “You almost dropped these.”
For some reason, that just pisses her off even more than she already is. Kade’s clearly supernatural. He knows something about what happened to her.
He’s possiblywhathappened to her.
And he’s acting like she barely exists after being everywhere she was all the time.
“I want to talk.”
“Can’t,” he says, his body tensing. “I’ve got somewhere I need to be.”
“You need to be here, answering my questions,” she snaps, anger simmering in her veins.
Kade shakes his head, taking a step back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Elara quickly steps forward, recovering the distance between them. “You sure as hell do. I want to talk.”
“I don’t,” he says curtly. He shoves the books out but Elara doesn’t take them. They’re the one thing keeping him here right now.
Except Kade glances around, a low frown pulling his dark brows down. He spots a chair just behind him beside the wall and he strides over and places them down. He straightens, and for the briefest of moments, he hesitates, the muscles across his shoulders tensing.
But then he hunches forward and starts to walk away.
Like hell he is.
Elara leaps forward, surprised at her speed, and wraps a hand around his upper arm. The moment she does, they both freeze.
There it is. What she’s determinedly ignored each time she’s bumped into him. The sizzling warmth at the slightest touch. The heightened awareness of every inch of his muscled body. The tantalizing wish that she could gaze into his indigo-blue eyes for just a little bit longer…
But this time, everything is far more intense. She can feel the way his biceps harden. Heat. Almost quiver under her touch.
Kade glances down at where her hand’s holding him. Then looks up. Elara’s breath had already disintegrated, but now it’s like it never existed. His indigo eyes are hurting. Almost bruised with the amount of pain they’re holding.
And yet, they’re hot. As if the heat of their touch has reached there, burning away the wound she doesn’t understand.
“Is it something I’ve done?” she says, shocked as the whispered words slip out. She’s gone from angry and demanding to pathetic and pleading. But that one touch strips away the anger, revealing what’s underneath. The questions that have been clawing at her consciousness.
Is he angry with her? Disappointed? Because she exposed the supernatural?
Because somehow, he knows about Laith?
Because he’s watched her for weeks and didn’t like what he saw?
“It’s not you, Elara. It never was and never will be.” His eyes flutter closed as his jaw works. “None of this is your fault,” he grinds out through clenched teeth.
She has no idea what that means. In fact, his words, whatever this is between them, only confuse her further. And she’s never wanted to understand anything more.
